Critics' Choice: New CDs: David Archuleta

By BEN RATLIFF

Published: November 10, 2008

DAVID ARCHULETA

(Jive/Zomba)

David Archuleta has a lovely, foggy R&B voice out of scale with his small body and, as many 10-year-old girls know, he came in second in May behind David Cook on ''American Idol.'' That he lost gives his first album a better story line. Could he have retained so much innocence as the winner?

Innocence, in pop, is a form of boldness: the powerful gesture of putting faith in not knowing. It's old news in record-making, but the trick is in how far to push it and in finding music that can stand up to it. The crinkly-eyed Mr. Archuleta, a pudding of tongue-tied respect as opposed to the straight-shooting Mr. Cook, is a virtuoso of that gesture, and part of his persona on this album is that he may not even know it. He doesn't mope; he just smiles in wistful acknowledgment of the eternal mystery of everything. The love stories on ''David Archuleta'' are all sort of subliteral. He can only trust good omens and kind eyes.

He's a guy who gives the impression that he might not have a drink when he turns 21, three years and a month from now. It sounds strange when he sings ''baby''; but soon enough (in Robbie Williams's ''Angels'') he's extolling someone's protection, love and affection, and then that someone is not a person but an angel. As for human relations, he is as earnest as it gets. In ''Touch My Hand,'' he looks out into the adoring crowd and doesn't think about royalties; he sees ''the sparkle of a million flashlights,'' but only one face. ''Never knew what the song was about,'' he sings. ''But suddenly now I do.'' Gosh!

But what he has to climb over to get to that face. His life is like a series of dream frustrations: he's separated from his love by walls and locks and roadblocks (''Barriers''); he's losing strength and needs her to hold on (''My Hands''); he also needs her so he can be set free from himself (''You Can'').

The music, made by many producers and songwriters, averages out different forms of radio-format blandness, with tinges of Coldplay and Shania Twain, and a few dollops of good writing: ''Don't Let Go,'' co-written and co-produced by the former 'N Sync singer J C Chasez; and ''Crush.'' But the persona remains intact, ready for more. ''Show me that good things come to those who wait,'' Mr. Archuleta sings at the end of ''You Can.'' He sounds as lost as ever, yet this is a mark of absolute assurance. BEN RATLIFF